Under the Skin
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: Skinwalker AU Dean and Castiel are both abandoned by their families for having the same 'condition' they live between people and animals on the street for years before meeting. Mentions of child neglect and vague abuse.
1. Chapter 1

_Fucking private practice. Dumb tearjerker plots about abandoned kids got to me god damnit!_

Dean's sitting in a big orange chair covered in scratchy hairs. He's five years old, wearing a green polo and red shoes which clash interestingly with the chair. Dean's holding the arm of a mangy bear with one wing and a bald patch where it's halo used to be before Sam pulled it off and chewed it. A group of Doctors, including Dr Sacks, his paediatrician, watch him anxiously through the glass partition to the waiting room.

Dean has no idea that the note he gave to Dr Sacks read –

_Stuart, _

_Please don't think less of us. You of all people know how hard this is to do, and how much harder it would be to keep him with us. Sam's normal, we can't risk him in this._

_We're done, and we're sorry._

_Please take care of him._

_Mary. _

Dean tugs on the bears wing as Dr Sacks tries to work out a way to tell him that his parents are never coming back.

_Castiel is nine the first time it happens, and it hurts so badly he can barely breath. His skin is on fire, the muscles stretching and burning with effort, his fingers and toes curling in agony. He must make a sound because Balthazar, in the twin bed across the room, wakes up and see's him. _

_Castiel has no idea what Balthazar saw that night, because his perspective was rather limited. But his brother screamed like demons were coming out of him, like Castiel was dying horribly in front of him._

_Which is what it felt like at the time._

_Michael comes to see what the matter is, just as Castiel's body gives a last apologetic wet, shudder which feels like sliding into a cold rubber suit, and he's __**done**__. _

_Michael grabs Balthazar and runs from the room, screaming for Lucifer to wake up, for Gabriel to come downstairs. Castiel lies in his own sweat, thanking God that the pain is gone, that it's over. Weak and shaken with the force of it. _

_He tries to get up and follow his brother, but his legs are shaking and he can't make them work right. His whole body feels wrong. He lies there with his eyes closed, waiting for Michael to raise the alarm and then come to help him._

_It's only a few minutes later when his brother returns with a broom and a kitchen knife, rousing Castiel from half-sleep with a yell, that he even realises something is wrong with his eyes. _

Dean hates the child services lady. He hates her stupid fluffy jumpers and her thick necklaces and her little dolls that she gets out all the time to ask him how he thinks families should look. He wants his Mom, he wants to see Sam, and they won't let him.

He's been in care for a month and he hates that too. The other kids think he's weird, like all kids do, 'cept Sam. They laugh at the sounds he makes when he sleeps, the way he sometimes wakes up across the room, dazed and naked.

He's only five years old and he already thinks that, if his parents aren't coming back, then there's no reason for him to stay somewhere he hates.

Two weeks shy of his sixth birthday. Dean runs away from home.

_Castiel has scars from what Michael did. None of them are from the knife, but the brief panicky tussle when Castiel came to was enough to earn him four finger nail slashes and a bad hit with the broom that made his new vision jump and left a cut over his eye. _

_He'd bolted from the house in confusion, bumping into Gabriel on the way and begging for help, but his brother leapt away from him and darted a little way up the stairs, staring down at him in horror. _

_He'd run from them, out the front door and away down the street. He'd wandered the streets and grown tired and cold, tried crying but made only terrifying sounds. Everything was weird and harsh and loud, and he'd eventually curled up in a doorway and shivered himself to sleep._

_He woken up naked and alone. _

_When he'd made his way back to the house, Michael had stood in the doorway with their Father's revolver, unearthed from underneath the potting shed, handed him a bag of his things and told him never to return._

_Castiel had walked away from his family, the only place he'd ever known, and begun his life on the streets._

Dean hated people.

He'd felt that way since he was five and his fucking parents had left him behind at a doctor's office. Since he's been put into care, and every single person he met when he ran away had only deepened his mistrust.

He was fifteen and he was sick of their bullshit.

There'd been a manhunt of course, when he'd disappeared, and frankly it had kind of escaped his notice. He'd been busy living in a box in an alley behind a diner.

At six he'd decided he hated being a person, so he'd done the one thing his Mom had made him promise never to do if he could help it.

He shifted.

Dean's form had been a beagle since he was six months old. His mom was a retired hunter, she'd known as soon as he changed, the night after she read to him about a beagle who chased down bad wolves. He'd shifted, he didn't even remember it, but the lore he'd found since, in a library across town, said it must have hurt.

He'd thought, later when he had the capacity to be introspective, that it must have killed his mother – the fact that he had been in pain and she couldn't help.

His parents had coddled him once he got old enough to reason with. They'd asked him not to change, promised him things that kids like (he guesses)...ice cream, stories, time at the park. But he couldn't help it, it just slipped out. So they'd started to get mad, figured he was doing it on purpose.

Then when he was four, Sam was born.

Perfect, healthy, baby Sammy.

He'd loved his brother, but at fifteen? Living in the filthy side streets as a dog for the last decade?

He kind of fucking hated that kid.

_Castiel doesn't know what he hates more, being kicked as a dog or abused as a boy. _

_When he's in his other form, people don't check their malice, they snarl at him, boot him in the ribs and chase him away. They try to hit him with stones and maybe tie firecrackers to his tail. He's a mutt after all, a medium sized black dog that looks so thin and broken that it can't possibly belong to anyone. _

_But as a boy...there are people, men, who come up to him on the street, smiling. They offer him things like candy and food, then money if he keeps saying no and edging away. They smile, but they don't smile with their eyes. Their eyes are dog kicking eyes._

_As an animal he sometimes gets attention, the good kind. When a woman on her work break will give him half a sandwich or children will pet him. He hates being touched by them, it's like being pawed in his human form by other children, but he likes the food, and after a thousand kicks and a hundred suggestive touches on his human skin, a pat on the head feel so good that he can forget the discomfort. _

_He's stuck between his two forms. Boy and animal, neither of them really work, dogs know something is odd about him, and people don't trust him either. _

_He doesn't fit, with anyone. _

_It's also winter, and he's so tired with wandering, half sleeping on the ground and freezing all the time. He chances across a box beside a bin that smells like food, the cardboard is lined with a faded blanket, but he snuffles around it and it seems empty enough. Curling up he lets his head fall on his paws and tries to sleep._

_It's been six years since he slept in a bed._

Oh, Son of a bitch.

Dean pads to a stop and drops the half a burger he'd liberated from a paper bag two blocks away. There's a stray in his den and he really fucking hates when that happens. He's got a scar across his nose from the last one, and he promised himself that he wouldn't fight one off again, he'd just shift back and kick the damn thing out on its ass.

He lets his skin shiver and stretch. Somewhere along the way he'd gotten desensitised to it, could feel the heat and cold pouring along his skin and not cry out in agony. It just feels weird.

Standing up he looks down at himself, he hasn't been human for over two years and he's changed so much he doesn't really recognise himself. Though his skin feels clean enough, probably due to the grooming he does in his other form. He limps over the rough concrete and slams a hand down on the top of the box.

"Out" he growls, surprised that his voice has broken and he'd skipped the mangled stage in between.

The shaggy black dog snaps awake, looks up at him and cowers back into the box. Dean's not particularly fazed, dogs are scared of him in either form because he smells wrong, and now he even looks threatening. Which hey, can only be a bonus living as he does.

"Get out." He snaps.

The dog whines and stands up slowly, tail down and nose tilted at the ground. Dean grabs it by the scruff of its neck and pulls it out of the box, shoving it into the street. It doesn't run away, but turns quickly and sniffs at his hand, whining deep in the back of its throat.

"Go." Dean points, advancing a little.

The dog doesn't run, but yips excitedly, circling him slowly and sniffing the air, leaning up to do so. Dean doesn't recognise signs of attack, but the dog is starting to piss him off, so he draws back into a crouch and tries to growl, forgetting for a second that he's not in the right body.

The dog trots forwards, long snout angling towards his face as he draws slowly closer to Dean's snarling mouth. The dog inches forwards, sniffing, whining softly and softly sweeping the ground with a wary tail. Then, it licks him. A soft dab of pink tongue on Dean's cheek. A pair of cautious blue eyes look up at him and Dean rubs the saliva from his face, wondering why this dog has decided to take a shine to him.

"You asked for it." He grumbles, tensing and letting his body find the edge and tip into the change. He contracts and shivers down into the form of a beagle, fully grown now and scarred from several brawls with both dogs and people.

The dog doesn't move. Doesn't try to attack him, doesn't howl and run away. Instead it plants its butt on the ground, looks at him for a moment, and then does its own little shiver, a tense coil of energy as its body grows and changes from flat black to pale skin.

Dean backs away a little as the dog turns into a boy, perhaps his own age, pale and thin and with longish dark hair that matches his other form. The kid is sitting on the cold concrete, knees drawn up to his chest. He holds out a hand tentatively, Dean sniffs the very tip of his finger and scents what he hadn't been able to as a human.

The boy smells exactly like him. He changed, exactly like he can.

_The beagle darts forwards and sniffs him thoroughly. Castiel knows he already understands that they're the same, but knowing that and wanting to having it re-configured as the comforting smell of 'likeness' is something else. The dog hits him in the stomach, jumping up and pressing him to the ground as it trails its cold nose up his chest, sniffs his under arm, then transfers its interest to his hair, pressing the soft, scarred snout into his tangled locks and breathing so deeply that Castiel can feel it's warm exhalations. He reaches a hand up and touches the soft belly of the small animal, the dog tenses, but recognises the touch as friendly, and relaxes again, snuffling happily as Castiel brushes his fingers over a bite mark on its stomach. _

"_Hello." Is the first word Castiel thinks to say. The dog woofs softly and he feels it move to the ground by his side, shivering against his ribs as it changes back to human form. Hands touch his skin, his chest and stomach, Castiel lies in the submissive, belly baring position whilst it happens. If he hadn't spent so much time prowling around naked or crouched unclothed in alleys looking for food – he'd probably be embarrassed. _

_The other boy's face is intent, and now that he can see it in colour, Castiel notices the green of his eyes, the brown of his hair. The boy is larger than him, stronger and better developed, though their ages might be similar. When the trailing hands slide to his hips and trace his cold thighs and the place between he makes a small sound of discomfort and the other boy looks up, seemingly surprised to find a person attached the body parts he'd been touching. _

"_What's your name?" He remembers it's an important question, people use it all the time, and sometimes Castiel is a person, so he's tried to re-learn the skills he let drop when he left his family._

"_Dean." The boy says after a pause, like he's trying to remember a word like trebuchet, one he's never really had to use. _

"_Castiel." Castiel says, even though Dean doesn't ask._

"_You were sleeping here." Dean says. "I sleep here." _

"_Sorry." Castiel mutters, wondering if Dean's going to exact some kind of vengeance for this intrusion, instead the boy shrugs and hunkers down on the pavement. _

"_Shift." He says, and then does so without waiting for an answer. Castiel pauses, then does so, wincing at the odd feeling. As a dog, Dean nudges him into the den and Castiel goes in and lies down on the blanket. Dean snuffles into the longish, tangled hairs of his belly, curling up and settling down in the curve of Castiel's body. _

_Castiel whines confusedly._

_Dean huffs arm air into his stomach and closes his eyes pointedly. _

_Castiel goes to sleep, breathing in the scent of himself, and someone similar. _


	2. Chapter 2

_Ahh, the lack of smut. Basically I wanted to introduce DeanandCas the unit, before I rounded out the family side of things. So this is a fairly quick round up of their relationship/pack._

Dean wakes up with a furred chest rising and falling beneath the fold of his ear. The biscuity scent of musk creeps out of the soft hair under his nose and he sniffs it lightly, eyes closed and legs folding up as he tries to stay near the warm bulk.

Castiel's jaws creak as he yawns, nuzzling close to the ratty blanket underneath him. Dean can't remember feeling this warm before, he hasn't slept next to another living thing since he was with his parents.

His stomach makes a small rumbling sound. Castiel makes a noise that sounds like a smothered laugh.

By the time hunger prompts them to abandon the safety of the den there is no longer a question of Castiel leaving Dean's side. Neither of them mention it, and Dean offers him half of the rediscovered burger.

That's how their pack is formed.

Dean usually stays in his dog form all the time, scavenging for food and shelter and sleeping under a covering of fur and with the protection of teeth and claws. Castiel however, values his humanity slightly more and spends a lot of time as a human, stealing clothes whenever he shifts back and forth, and sleeping rough like any other teen on the run.

No one's looking for him after all.

Dean compromises by finding an empty gas station on the edge of town where they can shift back to human and spend the night. He does it grudgingly but without being asked, and only on especially cold nights does he insist of sleeping as a dog. Privately he admits he sleeps better as a man, but he isn't going to let that on to Castiel.

It takes less than a week for Dean to readjust to spending time as a human, he still lacks social graces but Castiel isn't exactly clued in on social norms, so it works out. The main change is that he was last human just as puberty was kicking in, and he's never had anyone around who was even the same species as him, so now he's woken to it in a rush. It's not exactly a big deal, they're both in touch with the lower impulses of both their human and animal sides, and both of them relish the new bond between them.

That's kind of another reason Dean submits to being human some of the time – he'll wash as a dog, eat like one, sleep like one, live like one. Screwing like one would just be creepy. Not to mention that Castiel is a lot bigger than he is when they're transformed and there's no way he's going to admit he can't, you know _reach. _

They spend the days circling a few miles from the gas station, looking for food, bits of clothing or anything else that they can drag back home between the two of them. Then at night they shift back and go to bed, though really it's more a nest than anything else.

Despite never having had access to the education system or internet porn, neither of them are exactly stupid. And after find a particularly good way to rub against each other, they get down to it as often as they can.

Having lost touch with humanity at the age of five, Dean doesn't even know there's a word for what he is, for what they're doing, until Castiel notices and attempts (patiently) to explain homosexuality. Dean thinks it's a pretty strange and that surely, from a breeding point of view, people must eventually mate whether they feel like it or not.

Cas is adamant that they don't, with all the stubbornness of someone who learnt something at the age of nine and refuses to let it go. He'd had to sit though Gabriel explaining why he had a boyfriend and he was finally getting to use that wasted time for something.

Privately Dean just thinks it's because Cas is Cas and that's the end of it, but the other boy maintains that at some point Dean would find at least one other man attractive.

Dean stubbornly insists that if it hasn't happened yet it won't.

Cas just sighs and snuffles his collar bone, sucking on the side of Dean's neck until he stops complaining.

It'll be years until Dean catches Castiel leaning against the corner of their couch, apartment curtains drawn as he reads a book on child psychology and wonders aloud if they were disturbed from becoming 'sexually mature' at such a young age.

Dean insists it's the least weird aspect of their relationship, and that Castiel's councillor is an asshole.

At sixteen neither of them had such worries, and eventually, after much experimentation, discomfort and resentment, they managed to find out for themselves how they were supposed to fit together.

At eighteen Castiel pointed out that they were old enough to work, old enough to rent a roof over their heads rather than crouching underneath someone else's. Dean found a bicycle repair shop that wasn't too strict on background checks, and he learnt to but his hard won technical skills to use, reasoning that if he can sew up a cut in his own stomach there's really nothing he can't learn how to do.

They begin to lose their more primitive edges, leaning instead into the comfortable domesticity of having a home. More house pets now than wild dogs. Dean works and Castiel keeps their home as clean as a couple of rooms, a mattress on the floor and a refrigerator can get. At night they still sleep as people, but sometimes they shift and go out, chasing each other or rats or other strays and falling asleep in a hedge somewhere.

It takes very little in other words, to bring them together and for them to work for a normal life, now that they have the other around to bolster them.

They're each the end to the other's story, the resting place after a long struggle.

But they're also the end to someone else's story, which begins in a general store in Pontiac, Illinois.


	3. Chapter 3

They've lived in Pontiac for a little over a year, in a small apartment with a bed and a toaster oven. They do their food shopping on Wednesday and their laundry on a Saturday. They've settled into being, if not normal, than at least comfortably ensconced in the normal world, with their own little annex into the strange world their DNA has birthed them into.

Dean's circling the aisles of the general store near their home, looking for better coffee grounds than the ones Cas bought last time he went shopping, when he catches a scent. Usually in his human form, most scents are muted, but this one is so deeply ingrained in his mind that he recognises it instantly, twisting around and nearly dropping the jar of coffee.

"Mom?"

A gangly boy looks back at him, about fifteen years old and peering through a curtain of brown hair.

"Uh...no? sorry man." The boy grabs a bag of coffee and begins to retreat. Dean inhales, and there it is again, his mother's scent, only wrapped up with something else.

"Sammy?" he tries, and the boy goes still, watchful.

"No...I..."

"Sam?" A man Dean recognises, has had both nightmares and dreams about seeing again, rounds a pyramid of sugar bags. "I only sent you to find..." He catches sight of Dean and stiffens, recognising only that there's an almost grown man with a scarred face and fraying shirt staring at his son.

"Can I help you?" John says, with an edge of a threat.

"Dean?" Castiel comes into the aisle behind John, a bag of potatoes under one arm. Seeing Castiel, blue shirted and with his converse peaking weirdly out from underneath his plain black pants, Dean feels himself relax, the surreal moment grounding itself through his mate into something he can cope with.

Castiel breathes in and, always the sharper nose out of the two of them, notices instantly the similarity between the scent of the man and Dean, and between Dean and the boy.

"Are you ok?" he asks quietly, coming close enough to put the potatoes in the cart, Sam is still frozen between them and his Father, John still tensed and waiting for Sam to come back to him.

"Yeah." Says Dean, raising his voice to say, "Hey Dad." Pointedly grasping John's attention.

John beckons numbly for Sam. "Go wait in the car."

"But..."

"Now Sam!" John demands, and the teenager slopes off grudgingly. John stands warily before his grown son, eyes flicking nervously between Dean and Castiel.

"I never thought I'd see you again." John says, finally.

"Tend to go that way when you kick your kid out of the family." Dean says, a note of his other forms growl creeping in defensively.

"I left you..." John shakes his head as if they've had this argument a thousand times already. He looks older, far older than Dean remembers, grey creeping into his hair, lines and wrinkles forming on his skin. "I left you with people who'd be able to cope with you...you shouldn't have found us, just...leave me and Sam alone."

"He's my brother." Dean insists stubbornly. "And we've lived here for over a year. We're not going anywhere."

"He's not your brother, whatever you are...you're not related to Sam – stay the hell away." John says, looking nervously at Castiel, who's bristling angrily with every word. "And keep...whoever that is away from me and him."

"This is Castiel." Dean says roughly, just as John starts to turn away. "He's my mate."

John turns back around.

"He's...you found another one." he looks like a bad taste has crept up the back of his throat. "I always worried you'd attract more of these things."

"So that's why you dumped me into care?" Dean's hand curls around the jar and glass spills out from between them as it breaks. "I'd have rather been dead than be there, you had to know that." His blood palm prickles with glass shards. "I ended up on the street, _Dad."_

John looks like he's going to say something, then turns around and walks away, leaving Dean standing beside Castiel, over a mess of coffee beans and dime sized drops of blood.

Dean turns and storms in the opposite direction.

"Dean!" Castiel calls after him, then follows, abandoning the cart. Dean bursts out of the store and turns into the side alley.

By the time Castiel reaches it he finds only a pile of clothing and a trail of bloodied prints that lead away down the alley.

He picks the clothes up and folds them, setting them under a cardboard box for Dean to find later, then goes back to doing the shopping.

Dean needs his time, his space, and Castiel isn't going to chase him when he doesn't want to be found.

It's a surprise to find Sam Winchester on his doorstep when he gets home. Castiel sets his brown bags down and looks for his key, ignoring for a time the gangly teenager perched on the apartment buildings banister.

"Where's Dean?" Sam asks eventually.

"I believe your father upset him." Castiel says wearily. "He'll be back after dark I expect."

Sam scuffs a toe into the asphalt tile of the hallway.

"Who are you guys?" Sam asks. "I mean...he called me 'Sammy', no one calls me that."

"I have no connection with you." Castiel hedges.

"But Dean does?" Sam jumps on the unspoken truth. "He called him 'Dad', my dad..." Sam frowns. "So I have like...a half brother?"

Castiel sighs.

"You have a full blood brother, Dean's your older sibling." He picks up his groceries and unlocks the door. "Come in."

Sam eyes the interior of the apartment with distaste as Castiel puts the food away. The kitchen is equipped with all the appliances needed to create food, but the living room is empty, save for the books heaped around the skirting board in a demented line and the pillows on the floor, lined up in a square for sitting.

"We don't really live like you do." Castiel says evenly.

"Getting that." Sam replies, gingerly taking a seat on the pillows when Castiel does, watching the older man hunker down with his knees up to his chest. "So...Dean's my brother? We have the same mom and everything?"

"Yes." Castiel says.

"Did they lose him or..." Sam shakes his head confusedly. "Did he go missing?"

"They abandoned him with their family doctor, who placed Dean in care." Castiel explains patiently, worried that he's taking liberties but then, the boy is here and he needs answers and there is no one else prepared to speak to him. "Dean did not fit in well with the other children, he took it upon himself to run away and then found himself on the street."

"When did this happen? I mean he can't be much older than me..."

"Just after your birth...Dean was about six when he left the care home."

Sam's brow wrinkles in horror.

"Six? No... that's...no kid could survive at six on the street. My Dad would never just leave his son to live like that." He says defensively.

"I don't think he knew." Castiel explains evenly. "And Dean wasn't a normal child, whilst the streets were still dangerous his peculiarities made him slightly more inclined towards survival."

"What are you talking about?" Asks Sam, eyes darting to the door like he's thinking about running for it.

"Your parents abandoned Dean because he's abnormal, difficult to deal with." Castiel states, wondering how he's going to explain this. If he even should.

"So, he's sick?" Sam taps his fingers on the edge of his shoe, "No, because he's been alive all this time...he's not sick if he managed that...So..."

"Your brother...and myself, are skin walkers."

He expects a frown, a confused look or declarations of his insanity. He gets none of those things.

Sam closes the small space between them and lays a hand on Castiel's arm, quickly drawing it away as the silver ring there burn his skin.

"Holy shit." Sam whispers.


	4. Chapter 4

_Hi, sorry the update took so long, I'm not feeling it right now. I'll write some more when I have an idea of where it's going. _

_You can still follow me on twitter, JollySnidge, and also buy my novel 'Me and Mine' at the amazon kindle store for under a dollar. Link in my profile, full blurb to be found there. I'd be grateful for the interest _

Castiel watches Sam with the wariness he has no particular basis for, but that has arisen to accompany unforeseen occasions such as this.

Sam and his father, are hunters. Sam has explained this, along with the fact that his mother died soon after his birth. Castiel feels for Dean then, knowing that the other man will be deeply hurt by that loss.

Sam is regarding Castiel with the kind of wariness that he's learnt from his father. Everything tells him that Castiel is a monster. And yet...his father is the one that abandoned Dean. Castiel is the one who's telling him the truth, and the one who's been living with his brother.

He has a brother.

That alone is amazing.

Something scratches at the front door and Castiel jumps to his feet.

"Get some water." He advises Sam, already on his way to the door.

Sam hears whining over the sloshing of the water into the glass, the padding of paws on the floor and Castiel, ("Shhh...I know it hurts...I know...") the other man enters the room, carrying the body of a beagle with a wounded foot.

"There's peroxide under the sink." Castiel tells him, laying the dog on the couch.

Sam has never actually seen a skin walker in its other form before.

He gets the peroxide and returns with it, Castiel adds some to the water and starts to clean Dean's paw with it. Dean whimpers and growls softly.

"Shhh..." Castiel says quietly, "It'll be over soon."

The beagle blinks up at Sam, woofs softly.

"Yes, he came to see us." Castiel finishes with Dean's foot. "Go get some clothes on so we can talk."

The dog runs obediently into the bedroom.

"He understands you?" Sam asks disbelievingly.

"He understands more than that." Castiel shrugs, "When you can't speak half the time you learn to communicate without words, without hands and expressions."

"So, what, you're psychic?"

"Dean's my mate. I don't need to be psychic." Castiel says pointedly, just as Dean emerges in a pair of frayed jeans and a third hand college sweater.

"No need for delicacy though, right Cas?" Dean raises an eyebrow. "Kid's only just found out he has a brother who's a dog – don't need to through in the image of me on your bony ass." He comes to squat at Castiel's side, Sam is already sitting on the floor opposite – his hunter training making his spine tense with expectation of an attack.

"So, you and dad are hunters."

Sam is surprised that Dean managed to guess that, but one look at Castiel's 'What did I tell you?' expression makes Sam rethink. Somehow they've shared information.

"Yes." Sam says.

"How long?" Dean folds his legs neatly, sitting on the floor as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

"Since..." Sam falters. "Since my Mom, our Mom – died."

Dean lets out an unsteady breath, exactly as his father did when placed under pressure. Castiel had kept that from him until now, hoping to reduce the pain of the meeting. Castiel raises a hand to Dean's arm without looking at him, squeezing lightly.

"How?" Dean asks softly.

"A demon...a couple of years ago. It...burnt our house down." Sam huddles in on himself. "Sorry."

"You should go home." Dean murmurs, getting up and walking into the back room.

"Dean..." Castiel calls after him. "He wanted to see you."

"He's seen. He should go home to his father." Dean calls back, then there's the soft whump of cloth hitting the floor. The beagle runs out of the back room and to the front door, nudging it open and haring off.

"He's not very good with people." Castiel stands and busies himself picking up the water glasses.

"You are people." Sam points out.

"Some of the time." Castiel sighs.

"I'm going to come back, here's my cell number." Sam scrawls it with a pencil on a scrap of paper from his pocket.

"We don't have a phone." Castiel says wearily.

"Find one." Sam advises, taking his leave with as little notice as Dean.

Castiel tidies their few possessions, tries to sleep. Can't. Changes into a dog and tries to sleep, still rest alludes him.

When the next morning dawns Castiel goes out in search of Dean, finds his scent trail ended in an alley. No trace of him after that. Not good news.

He finds a pay phone and calls Sam.


End file.
